A Mirrored Pool of Thought
by HumpbackWhales08
Summary: Adrienne and Ben first met when she acted as the "Good Cop" in interrogating Henry Gale, the hatch prisoner. From then on, does Adrienne become a pawn in Ben's game, or is there something more to their relationship? Rated M for upcoming chapters.
1. Chapter 1: Good Cop, Bad Cop

"For the hundredth time, my name is Henry Gale! I'm from Minnesota!" the captive prisoner declared just before Sayid landed another punch to the side of his face. The prisoner collapsed onto the floor, his hands tied uselessly in front of him as blood began to pour from his nose.

Sayid stood upright and wiped his bloodied knuckles on his shirt front. With the other hand, he brushed a strand of his hair away from his forehead, damp with perspiration. "It would be in your best interest, Henry Gale from Minnesota, if the next time we see each other, you give a different answer. Preferably, a truthful one." Then, leaving the prisoner moaning on the floor, Sayid stepped out of the small, dark room, and closed the door behind him with a heavy thud.

"Any luck, Sayid?" John Locke asked, looking up from sharpening his vast array of knives. Sayid shook his head in response.

"Sadly, no. It's been days. I think it's time to increase the pressure on our prisoner," Sayid explained evenly, casting a slight glance at Jack Shepherd who sat at a distance from John Locke and himself.

Jack shook his head vehemently. "Absolutely not. It's bad enough that you both have him tied up and locked away in a room so you can beat him every day." Jack, a man who liked to have control of his situation and the situations of others, hadn't been very receptive to Sayid and Locke's plan for their prisoner. Jack glanced at his watch. "Who's coming in for the next shift?" he asked with disdain. The numbers were another thing that Jack did not approve of.

"Adrienne is up next," Locke responded, blandly, moving onto the next knife.

"What?" Jack demanded angrily. "How did she find out about the hatch? I've told everybody involved to keep this between as few people as possible." Jack rubbed at his stubble, agitated.

"She stumbled upon it while out walking, Jack. We had no choice but to tell her, and she gave her word she'd keep it quiet," John said evenly, secretly taking pleasure in Jack's fury at not being in on everything that happens on the island. "Oh, and she knows about the prisoner, too," he added.

Jack didn't answer, instead choosing to remain silent and bitter. He didn't like that he did not have as much control over the survivors that he used to.

A screeching sound like metal on metal echoed throughout the hatch. Seconds later, Adrienne walked into the small living space within the hatch. "Hey," Adrienne said, her thumbs casually hooked into the belt loops of her jeans. She glanced at the expressions of the men around her, sensing the tenseness in the air. With a furrowed brow, she asked, "What's going on? Did something happen?"

"Nope," said Jack, swelling with perverse happiness at Sayid's failure. "Sayid hasn't managed to get anything new out of him." Jack nodded in the direction of the safe. Adrienne frowned thoughtfully, brushing a lock of her short chestnut hair out of her face.

"Hmm. Have you tried Good Cop, Bad Cop?" Adrienne offered. Jack frowned.

"Good Cop, Bad Cop?" he asked, looking mildly confused.

"You know, like how they do in the movies or on cop shows. There's one cop who's really mean to the criminal, and then there's one who's nice. The whole idea is that the criminal will come clean to one cop or the other, depending on what way is more persuasive to him." Adrienne paused to gesture to the locked door. "I'm guessing he's more likely to be tripped up by a Good Cop, since he hasn't changed his story with the Bad Cop."

The men glanced at each other. Jack shrugged. "There's no harm in trying, I suppose." He frowned slightly before adding, "Unless he really is from Minnesota, and you two are just paranoid." Jack gave a fierce look towards Sayid and Locke.

Sayid sighed, tiredly. "Now we just need a Good Cop. Unless you want to try, Adrienne? Since you're a woman, you might be the best choice for it."

Adrienne shrugged, apathetically. "Yeah, I don't mind giving it a try. As long as one of you is there on the other side of the door in case I get in trouble," she replied, giving a wide-eyed look of inquiry to the men in the room with her.

Locke stopped sharpening his knives and gave Adrienne a warm smile. "Absolutely."


	2. Chapter 2: Playing the Game

Adrienne pushed her way into the small room with her hands full of food. Jin had caught some large, fat fish and fried them up in lemon juice. Adrienne took a couple of the succulent fish, one for her and one for the prisoner, and put them on a couple dishes taken from the hatch. Two bottles of fresh water were wedged underneath one arm and two oranges were wedged under the other. She struggled inside the room and set the food down on the floor as Jack pushed the heavy door closed behind her.

Adrienne settled down cross legged on the floor next to the food. She looked up at the prisoner who sat on a metal bench attached to the wall. "Hi," she said lamely, tilting her chin up to smile quietly at the prisoner. He squinted his wide, round eyes at her.

"Hello," he responded suspiciously, glancing from the young woman in front of him to the pair of fish platters on the floor.

"My name's Adrienne," she offered shortly, handing one of the fish platters to the prisoner. He took it cautiously and slowly, his hands still bound together with rope. He stared silently for a while at Adrienne who ate her fish almost mechanically, robotically lifting forkful of fish to her mouth and lowering it back to her plate in the same motion. She reached up and placed his bottle of water next to him on the metal bench, bumping his knee in the process. "Sorry," she said shortly, although it hadn't been an accident. She had bumped him to see what he would do.

Henry gave a noncommittal nod before hesitantly lifting a forkful to his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "This is good. Did you make this?" he asked in a way that suggested he didn't particularly care about learning the answer but was asking it purely for the sake of polite conversation.

"No, I didn't. I can't cook worth a damn. Or catch fish," Adrienne replied with a smile, opening her gray eyes wide to portray a look of innocence. This whole thing was just a game, but it was important that she play it right. The corner of Henry's cut up mouthed twitched, but he fell back into silence, picking away at his fish and watching Adrienne pick away at hers.

After several minutes, Henry broke the silence. He tilted his head and shot Adrienne an intense look. "Is there any particular reason that you are here?" he asked, a touch of venom in his voice. Adrienne glanced up, her face pulled into a look of hurt.

"I guess not," she replied, pushing her empty plate away from her. "I just thought you'd like some company. Somebody to eat with. I don't know." Furiously, she began to peel the skin off her orange. Henry scoffed, pulling his swollen mouth into a smirk.

"Right, right. I'm sure that you just _wanted_ to keep me company. Pardon my reluctance to believe you, but so far none of your people have given me the impression of civility." The prisoner continued to drill Adrienne with a piercing look. "Do you really expect me to believe that those barbarians out there aren't using you to try to get at me? Why else would a strange girl have dinner with someone her people have locked up?" he asked poisonously. To his surprise, Adrienne grinned and rolled her eyes.

"Well, yeah, of course they put me up to it," she said, nodding towards the door behind her. "I thought that was obvious." The prisoner narrowed his eyes into a confused look. "That's why they let me come in here, at least. I really just felt sorry for you, so that's why I wanted to have dinner with you, and just talk."

"Felt sorry for me?" he asked suspiciously. "Why?"

"Well, you crashed on this island in a hot air balloon then you lost your wife and now you're locked up in a strange place. Yeah, I feel sorry for you." Adrienne reached over to put Henry's orange into his bound hands, gently brushing against his skin with her fingers. Goosebumps flitted across her arms and she thought she saw Henry's face twitch just very slightly. She smiled in what she hoped was a flirtatious way, trying to find as many buttons to push as possible. "Jack and Locke and Sayid are just being cautious by putting you in here. They don't really mean to hurt you."

Henry laughed mirthlessly. "I don't know about that. That Iraqi seems to really have it in for me."

A ha. Adrienne cocked her head and furrowed her brow, catching him in his elaborate lie. From what Sayid had said, he hadn't as of yet told the prisoner any details about himself. "Oh? Sayid told you that he was from Iraq?" Adrienne said in an innocent tone, but with a slight grin creeping out to spread across her soft face. Henry blinked as if realizing his slip up.

With a shrug, he said nonchalantly, "I guess I just assumed." He quickly glanced down and began to peel the orange that the girl had placed in his hands.


	3. Chapter 3: Art of Manipulation

When Adrienne left for the night, Ben spent hours kicking himself for his slip up. He never made mistakes like that. Everything was calculated and controlled: every word, every action, every smile, every look. But the mistake had slipped out of his mouth so easily that he hadn't even noticed it until Adrienne had questioned it. It was too early to reveal that he was not Henry Gale. He couldn't indicate that he was, in fact, one of the "Others", as they called them, until all the cards were in play.

For a while, Ben tried to comfort himself with the notion that maybe Adrienne hadn't noticed his slip at all, that he was reading too much into her coy smile, the way she devilishly bit her lip when he referred to Sayid as "the Iraqi." After he finally came to terms with the fact that Adrienne was the sole 815 survivor who knew for sure that he was not who he said he was, he waited for Sayid to burst through the door, ready to deal him dozens of fresh barrages to his face. He waited on edge for the door to slide open, for Sayid to walk in with knives or hammers or pliers. But that never happened. For whatever reason, Adrienne had kept his little mistake to herself.

With a tired sigh, Ben swung his legs up onto the cold metal bench and tried to ease himself into slumber. But the feat was made even more difficult, as images of Adrienne kept flicking back and forth beneath his eyelids, her lips drawn up into a flirtatious, bow-like smile, her hand reaching to touch his.

Adrienne came to visit Ben every day after that, never once mentioning the slip up he had made. Instead, Adrienne talked casually to Ben about books, movies, innocuous stories about each other's growing up experience. In the case of Ben, most of his stories were elaborate lies of being born into a wealthy family who owned a mining company and having always had a fascination with air travel.

Adrienne's stories were true but vague. She talked about dropping out of college, because she realized how pointless an English degree would be. She talked about working a minimum wage job at a clothing store while she figured out what she wanted to do in life.

"I think my main problem is that I'm just lazy. I have no interest in work of any kind," Adrienne said playfully, sitting next to Ben on the metal bench.

"Everyone has to work," Ben said evenly. "How else do you plan on having money to live off of?" Adrienne shrugged.

"Maybe I'll marry someone rich and just live off him. I don't really know." Suddenly she turned to look at the man sitting next to her. His face had healed up a bit, become less discolored. It was stubbly and rough from the lack of access to a razor, and his eyes were as unsettling as ever. However, despite his haggard, intense appearance, Adrienne was strangely drawn to him. She felt strangely compelled to reach out and touch his face. "You said you were rich, right?" she added coyly.

Ben's mouth twitched. "Well, I had enough money to take a balloon and try to fly around the world, so, yes," he replied in a roundabout way, uncomfortable yet interested in the change of direction in the conversation.

"Well, then, maybe I'll just marry you," Adrienne said, biting her lip and glancing at him sideways. She watched the prisoner's face freeze up, his eyes narrow. He knew she was playing the game now, but didn't know exactly what her intention was.

Ben chose a safe route and replied in a sad tone, "My wife just died, remember? I think it's a little early to be making jokes like that." Ben turned his gaze to his feet.

"Oh, don't even try that," Adrienne barked, her voice suddenly hard and commanding. "We both know that balloon story is a bunch of bullshit, 'Henry Gale'." Her eyes bored into his. She struggled to maintain confidence in her gaze. She had made a bold move. If things went bad, she wouldn't be able to remedy the situation, and the game would be lost entirely.

Ben's eyes hardened in response and his lips tightened. "No matter what you tell your people," Ben said, his voice quiet and quaking with fury and fear, "I will never confess to being anyone other than Henry Gale from Minnesota."

"Oh, I'm not going to tell anyone. I just want you to cut the bullshit and be straight with me. That's all I'm asking," Adrienne said, her voice and face softening again, the lines in her scowling face beginning to recede. Ben scoffed and looked away from her in disgust.

"God, do you think I'm an idiot? Of course you are going to run and tell your people everything I say. That's the whole point of this! You're trying to play this game with me, but you don't realize how good I am at thinking one step ahead. Batting your lashes and playing cute won't make me trust you. There isn't one reason why you would keep your word and keep secrets from your people." Adrienne stared blankly at Ben, her mouth open slightly, her full lips parted in a look of sad stillness.

"Look, I don't want them to kill you. I know you're not Henry Gale from Minnesota, but I also know you're not a bad person. I don't know why you are here, but I don't think you really want to hurt any of us. And I don't want you to get hurt, either." Now was the time to weasel her way in, get a few answers. She reached over and placed her hand on his thigh and moved it gently back in forth. She sidled over closer to him and leaned into his ear, breathing her warm breath onto his neck, sending sparks fly up his spine. "I've grown kind of attached to you," she whispered sultrily. Adrienne leaned in and nibbled lightly on the side of his neck, tasting the salt of his sweat. His muscles tensed up and he grasped his tied hands over hers.

"Why are you…?" he began pathetically as her hands began to slyly unbutton his shirt, biting and kissing his neck as it led down to his chest. She couldn't get his shirt or his undershirt all the way off because his hands were bound, so she left them and moved her hands to his pants.

"Truth is," Adrienne explained as she unbuttoned his pants and yanked them down enough to expose his boxers and his growing erection, "I haven't gotten laid since coming to this damn island, and it's driving me crazy. And I also have a thing for men who are tied up." Adrienne smiled sensually as she stood to undo her own jeans. She slid out of them slowly, letting them move sensually over her ample hips and down her statuesque thighs. She followed suit with her lacey black panties and kicked both articles of clothing into a corner.

As she straddled Ben, she kept her eyes glued to his face, delighting in the fact that Ben seemed extremely uncomfortable, looking everywhere except at Adrienne, even as she reached down to place his erect penis inside of her. "Mmm," she moaned silkily as she settled down onto his lap, thrusting his erection deep inside her. She rose and fell methodically yet vigorously, her leg muscles burning. She buried her face in his neck, licking and sucking, occasionally lifting her head to bite tenderly on his earlobe. She kissed everything but his lips. That just seemed too personal, too romantic, too loving for what she was really doing: working on the art of manipulation.

With one hand, she grasped both Ben's tied hands and pushed them over his head into the wall behind them. She listened as Ben's breathing changed in her ear and as his exhalations turned to moans and gasps. She quickened her pace. She wouldn't come this time, but that was alright. It wasn't really the point, anyway, was it?

"What's your real name? I want to say it," Adrienne commanded breathily. She squeezed her vaginal muscles together, causing Ben to emit a low groan.

"Ben, Ben Linus," he replied between gasps.

Her thigh muscles ached as the lifted herself up and down, up and down, grinding her teeth into his neck, murmuring his name over and over, his moaning growing louder and louder until finally she felt him release into her, his penis pulsing hotly. His eyes closed and his mouth opened in a slack jawed expression of ecstasy and climax. Breathing heavily, she allowed herself a minute to lean her head into his shoulder, her eyes closed, his bound arms lowered to encircle her in a vague representation of an embrace before she hopped off to retrieve her clothing, her face flushed and hot with embarrassment.


	4. Chapter 4: Shame

Adrienne banged her fist on the thick metal door, a signal for Jack to let her out. She tried to control the blush in her face, the color rising to her ears, as she stepped as casually as possible out of the little room. She couldn't tell what she was most embarrassed about: that she hadn't gotten as much out of Ben as she thought she would, that she had sex with a man she hardly knew for a miniscule bit of information, or that she couldn't help but wondering if it would ever happen again.

Jack looked up from a book he was barely reading. "Learn anything?" he asked curiously. Adrienne couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze. _Did he hear us behind the door?_ she wondered helplessly. Adrienne shook her head and sighed.

"Not a whole lot. He's harder to crack than I expected. He's very careful about what he says. I did find out his real name, though. Ben Linus," she offered pathetically, smoothing out her rumpled t-shirt. Jack's eyes widened.

"That's good, Adrienne. Now we know for sure that he's not this Henry Gale from Minnesota," Jack said with a glare towards the door.

"At least it's something, I guess. And he knew that Sayid was from Iraq, and I don't think it was a lucky guess. Whoever he is and wherever he came from, he has access to information about us." Adrienne moved to the sink to put the dirty dishes in it and run water over them.

"That fucker," Jack swore under his breath, viciously turning a page in the book he had in his hands.

"Yeah, I know," Adrienne replied in a tired voice. She didn't really want to talk to anybody at the moment, especially the high-strung doctor. "But don't let him know that I told you that. I'm still working on him." The words felt heavy and stupid in her mouth. She wished she'd never got it into her head to join Locke and Sayid's interrogation. She should have just stayed out of it.

"How'd you get him to tell you his real name? Sayid's been kicking the shit out of him for days and hasn't gotten anything," Jack said, his voice riddled more with puzzlement than admiration. That was one of the things Adrienne hated about Jack, the disbelief he had in regards to anyone doing something better than him. Anything you can do, Jack can do better.

Adrienne shrugged one shoulder, disinterested in continuing her conversation with Jack. "The trick is to play sweet and dumb, I guess. He doesn't view me as a threat, so he kind of lets his guard down. Unless he wants us to believe that he's letting his guard down. Maybe 'Ben Linus' is another alias."

"Well, then you'll just have to keep chipping away at him," Jack said, as if the whole thing had been his idea all along.

Adrienne scowled. "Yeah."

That night, Ben found it even harder to fall asleep on his cold, hard bench. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was Adrienne's young face, her eyes closed, her mouth hanging open, her head tilted back as she straddled him. Ben frowned and shook his head vigorously as if to dislodge the memory from his brain. He was furious that he had let her get that close to him, that intimate. He was even more furious that it had felt real, when he knew in his heart that she was probably trying to get at him. Still, when she played so sweet and innocent and young, he'd forget that he was locked up, with no discernible way of getting out. His people hadn't come looking for him, yet.

Angrily, Ben rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes, trying as best as he could to keep his mind placid and blank.

The next day, Ben waited in his cell for Adrienne to come. But she didn't. Instead, his food was delivered to him by Michael, a man whose eyes were wild and furious with fear for his only son. Ben smiled silkily as he began to offer Michael a deal he knew he wouldn't be able to refuse.

The day after Ben made his deal with Michael, Adrienne reappeared, looking fresh and clean but still tired and apathetic. She smiled tautly at him, as she handed him a bowl of chopped fruit. He took it, but looked disappointed.

"I was hoping for another fish," he said sadly, staring at the sticky, sweet fruit in the cracked wooden bowl.

"I'll give you one next time Jin catches any," Adrienne replied shortly. Ben's mouth twitched as he thought to himself that there wouldn't be a next time, at least not a next time where he'd be locked away in a cell, forsaken by his people.

Adrienne saw Ben's mouth twitch, and she frowned in suspicion. "What?" she asked. Ben looked up at her blankly, playing dumb.

"Hmm?" Adrienne frowned deeper and moved closer to his face, her head cocked dangerously to the side. She had been on edge ever since her stupid encounter with Ben, a manipulation ploy that did nothing but place seeds of discontent in her mind.

"What's so funny? You were smirking," she said, trying to keep her voice calm and even, but feeling the accusation rise in her tone. Ben smiled, his lips tight together, his eyes suddenly cold and hard.

"Well, I was just thinking that perhaps it won't be long that I'm out of this cell. Free to catch my own fish." He gave her a conspiratorial glance that made her heart clench in her chest.

"And why's that?" she asked suspiciously, her hands beginning to sweat uncomfortably.

"My people should be coming for me any day now. They'll slaughter all of you and then set me free. And nobody will ever know that Oceanic 815 crashed here on this island. There'll be nothing left." Ben paused before adding, "of you or your people." Adrienne bit her lip in fear, tempted to bang her fist on the door and have Sayid let her out. She couldn't find anything to say back to this man who, at one moment, seemed so docile and serene, patiently biding time in his cell, and at another moment, seemed so vicious and cunning.

"Who _are_ you?" Adrienne finally asked, unable to come up with anything else. She fought the urge to jump up and throw herself at the door by digging her nails into her palm.

"I am Benjamin Linus," he said with a dark grin. "I am the leader of the people you call the 'Others'." Suddenly he reached out with his bound hands and grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling her face up close to his. She stifled a cry, staring back into his large, cruel eyes. "It'd be best if you stay out of their way when they come. They'll do anything to get me back. And it'd be such a shame is something happened to you, after that nice time we had together a couple days ago." He breathed into her face, his breath hot and damp. She grit her teeth at him, reaching up to try and break his grasp on her hair.

She scoffed bitterly. "Oh, that?" she said, taunting him. "Don't flatter yourself. It wasn't very good." His eyes flashed menacingly, and Adrienne smiled.


End file.
